Afraid
by scuttlesworth
Summary: Deb dealing with season 4's ending aftermath. Rated M for the stuff at the end of season 4. Comments welcome.


Her whole life.

Nearly every day, with a few notable exceptions, she's seen or spoken to him her whole life. She shares every tragedy with him. Grade school, mother, high school, father, college, graduation. He saved her from a killer, once. And now, looking at his blank face, she's afraid.

Not just *for* him. She's afraid *of* him.

This is like the bad old days. She remembers when they were children. Even then, looking up to him, angry because he would never pay attention to her, she felt it. A sort of fear mingled with the love and awe he inspired in her. The shit she pulled to get him to notice her, when it worked - when he turned his face towards her, completely empty of expression - she'd flinch. Even though he was gentle with her, even though he took the time and showed her how to put her doll's head back on right. Even when he showed her how to climb a tree, standing below her, never going to let her fall - even then, she wasn't a hundred percent certain of him.

She was jealous of the time Dad spent with him. Jealous that Dad spent more time with him, and jealous too that before they went out he'd seem amped up, zinging with some sort of electricity; and after he'd seem mellow, calm, friendly. Something about the trips with dad gave him more peace, more connection than anything else. It separated her from him even further.

It never really stopped her, though. She wasn't sure if she was just too stupid to learn, or if it was the fact that despite his silent stare he never got angry, never acted impatient, never lost his cool. He just picked up his toys and moved someplace else, or restarted his science project, or put the puzzle back together. No matter what shit she pulled, he was a rock she never wore down.

In high school he changed. He learned to smile a little, be more cheerful. He joined sports teams, had friends. Girlfriends, even. But under the front of emotion she knew he was a solid as ever, so she was never surprised when the girls broke themselves against that unshakable reserve he hid. That unapproachable iceberg she imagined surrounded his heart.

Sometimes she pitied him. And eventually she learned that he'd go along with anything, if she nagged him enough. So when he sat studying, enveloped in his little world of chemistry and physics and other science geek stuff, she would stop and look at him. At his head bent over the papers, hair hiding his face, just the end of his nose poking out. Everything hidden. Then she'd come and tease him and drag him along in her wake, into parties he seemed to be bored by and to sports games he sat through patiently. She told herself eventually, she'd break through to him. And it seemed to work. He got better. He smiled, laughed. Seemed present.

Mom died. They sat there in the waiting room, waiting. Waiting for dad. Waiting for the news. And his face, it was back to what it used to be. Back to the times when they were kids. Blank. She huddled in her chair, alone, and he was this lump that sat next to her. Eventually another couple came in, their grief overwhelming, and they hugged each other; this seemed to stir him from some inner contemplation. He put his arm around her. The pure human warmth of it nearly sent her into tears, but she was Harry's daughter and she would not cry. She shook him off. She didn't need such cold comfort.

A minute later, she grabbed his arm and pulled it around her like a blanket, and he, silent, let her. Held her.

When Harry came out of mom's room, face broken, eyes lost, her world fell apart and she ran to him, tears streaming down her face. But there, just for a moment, caught up in her own grief, she thought she felt a tremor in Dexter's arm. A purely physical reaction.

He was there for her through the funeral, through the aftermath. He didn't do anything; just watched, silent, and put his arm around her whenever she came over to him. He watched everything. And when they closed the casket, his face crumpled. But he didn't cry, no tears; just a crumpled, miserable face. Harry, seeing it, looked horrified for a moment. Dexter turned to their father, and Deb couldn't see his expression; but after a moment Harry nodded. Lines grooved his cheeks, and he looked as though some heavy weight had just settled onto his shoulders; he looked away. But he recovered, patted Dexter on the head clumsily, his own face stolid and bleak, and he embraced them in his arms.

They fell into a routine, after mom's death. Harry and Dex, out hunting; Deb left behind. Harry and Dex at home; Deb still somehow excluded behind Harry's wall of tiredness and Dexter's reserve. Desperately trying to get something from them, anything. Sometimes achieving her goal - but it was always a shallow response. Her greatest rage, her most absolute fury, inspired nothing more than gentle befuddlement and apologies from her brother and exhausted annoyance from her father.

Deb's first boyfriend, when she got into high school. The huge breakup fight, in public, in front of her house, their father not home but the neighbors gawking from windows. A screaming and cursing argument on the front lawn, her crying with rage, her now-ex-boyfriend shouting insults while his friends waited in the car. He pushed her, made her stumble. Dexter, coming up from behind her, his face intent and a baseball bat in his grip, moving towards her ex. Her lunging, grabbing his arm while he dragged her a couple steps forward through sheer inertia; he started to shake her off as though she weren't there, then focused on her as she shouted his name. Hung on his arm, feeling the muscles rigid under her fingers, something huge vibrating through him. She talked to him, fast as she could get the words out of her mouth, not even sure what she was saying, until he seemed to click back into himself and she could take a breath. Gently leading him back into the house, ignoring the idiot who still stood on the front lawn yelling. Closing the door. Dexter confused, staring at her. "But he shoved you."

Friends with her ex again by the next month, Dexter looking at her with complete blank bafflement when she got out of his car and shouted profane but friendly insults at the ex. The ex laughed and drove off. Dexter shaking his head and going back to his homework; ruffling his hair in affection. Sometimes, despite their ages, she was the older sister.

The diagnosis came at the worst possible time. Dexter, in college. Debra, still in high school. With Dexter not at home, for the first time ever she had her father's undivided attention. He began to notice her swearing, her wild behavior. Began to respond, to try and lay down rules, and she gloried in it. She even forgave Dex when he came home on holidays and they retreated into the study, or off to hunt. Then. Then the hospital, the sickness, and it all changed again. The terror she felt not mirrored in Dexter's eyes, although his arm was warm around her and his face a study in worry. The slow slide down into Harry's weakness. Dexter, always there for her, but never really present.

Harry's recovery, and that last golden year.

Harry's death.

Those moments when she and Dex stood together before his coffin. That moment when Dexter touched Harry's face, lightly with his fingertips. His hand shook. Her whisper: It's just us now, Dex. Just you and me. His arm shaking as it wrapped around her.

Routine again, a new and fragile thing. Dexter, commuting from home to college so that he could be there for the last year before she graduated and went into the force. Making her soup, inexpertly. Quizzing her patiently on police procedure they both knew by heart and tutoring her in math that only he seemed to understand. Her enrollment. Her graduation, Dexter there in the audience for her, smiling the smile that never reached his eyes and hugging her.

Dexter listening, always listening. Always knowing something about the worst life had to offer. Coming to save her, eyes wide, arm straining above her when the killer held a knife at her heart. Giving her tips, not judging her relationships, never criticizing even when she wished he would. Dexter the frustrating puzzle, the inert matter.

Then came Rita and the kids. Rita, the sweetheart with so much beauty and love and such a bad deal from life. Rita needing someone stable. Dexter, who was so stable you could drop a nuke on him and not get a reaction. Dexter slowly, slowly seeming - for the first time in all their shared lives - to relax his guard, to connect. To enjoy.

Years passing. A wedding; she was an aunt. A baby; her dubious brother procreated. It wasn't something she had ever imagined. Never expected, not from him; it seemed to surprise him as much as anyone. But there - he was gentle. Even, perhaps, loving. A little scattered, exhausted, bemused, confused - but there, under it all, he seemed to have his priorities straight.

One year.

Rita. Rita in a tub of blood. Rita dead, and her brother kneeling on the lawn with the baby in his arms and his eyes gone staring blank. Only in that moment did she realize how far he had come from who he had been; only when she watched him loose it all and go back, back to childhood, did she see how much he had changed. Opened.

Dexter as remote as the moon, failing to respond to even the simplest of tasks. Holding the baby. Changing the baby. That was all he could seem to manage. Leaving it all up to her while she hovered around him like an anxious bumblebee, peered into his face looking desperately for any sign, any flicker of life.

Nothing.

Dexter. Brother. Where have you gone? Come back to us, please. We need you.

Dexter?

Please don't leave me here alone.


End file.
